Place upon my shoulders
your two bare hands,
Bless me like my father once did,
Read to me all the stories from
your umbrella mystery books,
Fly your kites back to my heart,
Butterfly strings and locust mornings,
Neck plucked of its feathers,
Rolling those crystal notes
out from the belly,
Teach me the noose knot,
I wish to rid of the past,
He told me to forget the skeletons,
They are only bones now

Your tongue said you were leaving
My eyes cried *stay

You've once recounted in memory
with that young boy vigor
of a hobby collection of that sort.

I find it fascinating how you could
maintain our feigned interest in naivety.
You kept us so long in silence.

You've kept all these things in
jars and cabinets packed in
tight spaces.

And as little and as inconsequential
that butterfly memory that you kept
in a bright jar up in your attic;

let that ripple strengthen into a wave
but i will never be what you willed
and kept for so long. A butterfly

clipped and dipped in formalin
for your tiny framed collection,
that pride-start, if you even had one.

-19FEB15